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John Passmore (1914-2004) on the History of Animal Cruelty

Animal Ethics

Once a definite social movement got under way in the West with its objective the restricting of man's treatment of animals, it moved with relative rapidity. Moral philosophers began to regard it as an obvious truth that it is wrong to treat animals cruelly. But not so far as seriously to limit man's domination of the world.

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H. B. Acton (1908-1974) on Animal Rights

Animal Ethics

When it is asked whether animals have rights, and whether human beings have duties to them, the question, I think, is partly moral and partly verbal. Let us consider the moral question first. The question of words is whether to talk about the rights of animals is likely to mislead. Even congenital idiots look like men.